Getting Our Part Ready

Day 29:  Blogging in the 31 For 21 Challenge to Bring Awareness and Acceptance for Down Syndrome

Wow, what a day to top of a loooong week…no don’t check your spelling, it was really that long.  With the anticipation of Bradley getting his Wish, we have had to start considering how to create the best means to accomplish this in our backyard.  With the phone call that the play area was in the warehouse, and a landscaper wants to come out to get some measurements and a feel for how he wants to perform his magic underneath the play area…a brief but very real bit of panic set in.  With Eric’s heart doing its weird little dance and his fatigue levels higher than they’ve been in quite a while, I was definitely feeling the pinch.  I spent last weekend painting in Sydney’s room, and rather than painting the hallway outside her room that will have book shelves against and finally get rid of the majority of boxes that are still calling the garage home, I put that aside in order to tackle the backyard.  We started the project on the side of the house.  Where the concrete stops brick was laid out in a walkway to the back of the house where it meets paver stones that wrap around the concrete patio.  I guess because concrete is expensive, as some point, some owner wanted a bigger patio and used interlocking pavers. 

We kept the rectangle bricks for Eric to use to build a fire pit at a much later date.  ;-)  Much later!  But by the time we got to the actual pavers after hauling the bricks, we both knew that we would be working on this for the next couple years if we didn’t get some help.  So we called in our neighbor’s friend, who does concrete and patios and all that wonderful things that made out neighbor’s house a showplace, at least on the outside.  We told him the what and the why, and he said he could come by Saturday; today, and bring it all down and get all the concrete out.  AND, he wasn’t asking for all the Gld in China to do it.  So yeah, we accepted and ordered the dumpster. 

We finally had some rain here this week, and when I say rain we actually had rain drops and puddles, none of that heavy misting stuff for us, no sir, we had real honest to God wet stuff.  With that in mind, I spent the says leading up to the rain, working in the backyard while Bradley was at school.  I started hauling paver stones and stacking them in a pile so that when they came to work they would be ready to haul away.  They were going to try to get all the work in one day, because two days would really put the monetary pressure on, so I thought I could work on the non-concrete part to help out.  Well, I made it to the patio, but the work started slowing considerably as I came around the end of the patio; apparently, someone thought it would be a great idea to seal those pavers in place with cement.  They may have been stuck there for me, but not the industrial size super-duper jack hammer that they brought with them today.  Hah, take that concrete and pavers.  The work out back took three and a half hours.  That’s it.  I’m not bitter, I mean just because the work I did took more than that with me working on my own… but that’s all right.  Now we have a bit of a muddy, albeit clean (?) palette for the work to happen to create a magical playground for Bradley to have for the next few years.   I am exhausted, but he is worth it…and the girls are worth it, so I’ll just sleep good tonight and quite possibly the next week.  If I could get Bradley to sleep through too, it would be fabulous, but well, he thought four am was a good start to his day today.  It took some convincing; but, I finally made him understand that there may technically be two fours on the clock, but he was not required or encouraged to see them both.   Thank God for coffee! 

While the work went on loudly outside, I painted the hallway wall on the opposite side of Sydney’s room.  Couple nice things about this: I could see Bradley almost the whole time, and the color we chose is a soft brown that reminds me of the way I like my coffee: creamy with a little bit of coffee to make it brown.  ;-)  Once I was done, Eric and the girls came round to check it out and they all had the same ohh and ahh reaction.  Sydney even told me it was comforting, and I grinned and told them that is what I am going for, comfort.  I’m even happier by the color because it will be the one that covers most walls in our house, with a few accent walls in darker colors.  Over all, I think the effect will be pretty cool. 

Bradley wasn’t very interested in the walls, though he did really think that playing with the small artist brush I was going to use for touch ups was quite fun.  He enjoyed being watched by his sisters and finds the most interesting and fun ways to hang out with them and drive them crazy, or I mean, play with them.  He grabbed Dad and I a few times, and each of us would take a few minutes here and there to just be with him. 

And then evening came.  I thought he’d been fine all day, and he truly seemed just fine, and truthfully he really was just fine.   He just missed mom.  After dinner, I sat on the couch, and though he was watching his IPad, he came bounding over to plop down beside me, snuggling into my side.  It made me smile.  He had been great all day, and he had enjoyed his time with his sisters, now he was letting me know that it was our turn.  So he snuggled in and like a little emperor; signed for his milk, drank and handed it back to me, then signed juice, handed it back and just kept repeating the cycle.  It was as if he wanted to make sure he had my attention when truthfully, he was merely choosing the only method he had to stay awake.  We let him go like this for longer than usual; in fact, he stayed until he decided he’d had enough and moved toward his chair and away from me.  Then we prepped him for bed and he fell asleep with his head on dad’s shoulder before he could even get to his pillow.  Everyone got snuggles today. 

So all in all, it was a pretty good day.  And it was really productive, which feels pretty darn good too.  The girls did their part to keep track of their brother and both took a turn with the painting while I was outside to help Eric a little bit with some of the yard clean-up.   The bigger dumpster allows us the opportunity to get all the work we’ve been doing all cleared out rather than waiting for every Thursday to empty the yard waste container.  It is still a work in progress; but hey, at least it’s progress.  The girls were part of the work off and on, but really took turns being with their brother, and Bradley just patiently waited out the chaos as he often does, and grabbed what he needed at the end of the day.  I think sometimes he is very in tune to what we all need.  When I am really tired, he knows and he just wants to be beside me, who can ask for anything better than that kind of love to fill your life. 

Busy but full Saturday!  Hope yours was good!